DUNES REVIEW

Fall 2016 (Volume 20, Issue II): 20th Anniversary Issue

SOPHIA GALIFIANAKIS

MY MOTHER MOURNS

 

In her island cant, her ancient slang,
my mother wails across a thousand miles
of water dead between us—

a mother has no age, the static in my palm rages
and shakes my breath from miles away, so many
I can barely feel, gazing at her loss, the broken

shell of her talk splintering through this
little foreign thing held awkwardly as a conch
to a child’s ear, whispering. The pulse of it gone,

gone, but in my hand the shell that breathes.
I put it down among so many things
that I collect and rearrange from time to time,

to call from dust the things I keep.

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